Northern Australia's unrecognised savanna land ranks alongside the Amazon and Antarctic as one of the world's last great wildernesses, according to a new study.

The study, by four Australian environmental scientists, also says that the savanna is more important globally than the World Heritage-listed rainforests of North Queensland.

The three-year study shows the 1.5 million square kilometre area that stretches from Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland across to the Kimberley in Western Australia contains the world's largest and most pristine tropical woody savanna.

Co-author Professor Brendan Mackey, of the Australian National University, says tropical savanna in Africa, South America and Asia has been seriously degraded by overpopulation, land clearing and overuse.

Northern Australia now contains 30% of the world's remaining good tropical savanna and the nation is well-placed economically to preserve its integrity, Mackey says.

By comparison, he adds, the Wet Tropics region of Far North Queensland makes up only 1% of the world's remaining tropical rainforests.

Comprehensive

The study used satellite imagery and previous published academic findings to detail "the most comprehensive scientific story to date of the natural environment and how the north works ecologically".

The authors also outline a plan for future economic growth that is compatible with preserving the north's ecological systems.

"The quality of the natural landscapes of northern Australia are now very rare on earth," the authors say in their book The Nature of Northern Australia, which outlines the research.

Mackey says northern Australia has the most intact mammal fauna in the country and that to visit the area is to see the landscape and wildlife almost as it "existed 200 years ago".

He says one elevated plateau in western Arnhem Land contains 170 endemic plant species and also vertebrate mammals such as pythons and wallaroos that exist no where else.

The study also found the Kimberley has 2000 species of native plants with 300 endemic species and Cape York has 3000 native plant types and 260 endemic species.

The savanna also contains one of the world's most diverse ant communities.

Mackey says it is not enough to declare more national parks, instead active management of the land is required to preserve the fragile ecological system.

Threats

This includes culls of invasive animals such as the water buffalo and controlled burns that draw on Aboriginal knowledge of land management.

The environmental scientist says there are two kinds of threat to the north: capital intensive development which involves land-clearing and massive infrastructure; and changes to the fauna and flora through invasive plants and animals.

"We tend to focus on the former because it is the more obvious one [but] a failure to deal with the more covert [invasive] threat will lead to the same end result," he says.